Human Resource Management Case

Human Resource Management is a concept in which organizations are designed to maximize employee performance in service of their employer’s objectives. HR is primarily concerned with how people are managed within organizations, focusing on policies and systems. “Policies” is the keyword for the HR managers. Policies are the defined guidelines of an organization. It is the responsibility of HR managers to communicate the company’s policies with the employee. In order to practice these policies smoothly three key roles are required; HR professionals, Line managers, all other employees. The three main roles are referred to HR Traid. For instance, successful companies like Google and Southwest airlines have developed system to manage their employees that reflects the three roles of HR traid. Every employee deserves to be treated fairly. The HR professionals ensure that the policies and the legal requirements of the organization are fulfilled. The mangers are responsible for the daily interaction with the employees and balance the employee’s behavior for healthy work environment. All employees are responsible for understanding and following the policies.  

An employee in T-mobile went to the press because she was laid off after her post pregnancy break. In her point of view the HR department was unfair to her because due to her pregnancy she had to go to the rest room multiple times. It may sound unfair at first but if you put yourself in the place of HR manger (put on your HR hats) the employee caused the company few dollars. Their main concern was not money but to follow the companies policy. Another interesting point I never knew before was that HR department cannot take direct actions on a medical situation. In that case they have to go through the process of consulting the company’s doctor and the employee’s doctor to take further action.

Protecting employees from harassment is also an important duty of the HR department. Harassment is commonly understood be offensive in the work environment. Harassment includes racist labels, vulgar jokes and ethnic slurs. Harassment creates an offensive, hostile and stressful environment. This kind of environment can affect the performance of the employee. Also, it is counted as a bad reputation for the company. To prevent harassment “Zero tolerance policy” and the guidelines from EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) are used by the organization. For example, “In-n-Out” is a large organization and they mostly deal with youngsters. In-n-Out has “zero tolerance policy” for harassment. They have an employee complaint hotline, so any employee can call and complain about the unappropriated behavior they received. A girl was sexually harassed by her manager and she directly reported to the complaint hotline. Further the complaint was investigated and the manager was fired immediately.